By Dave Vieser. With property values in the Golden Crescent taking off, the impact of Mecklenburg County’s county-wide property reassessment, or “reval,” is only nine months away. By state law, the “reval” must be done once every eight years; notifications with the new assessments will be mailed out in January 2019.

Commercial property owners are facing increases, with post-recession prices per square foot for commercial property up anywhere from 45 percent for industrial properties to 75 percent for retail.

HUFFMAN

The new property values established by the county are effective January 2019. Since the town fiscal years begin on July 1, this gives town finance officials time to digest the new figures, according to Huntersville Finance Director Jackie Huffman.

One Huntersville elected official called it the “mother of all revals.”

Huffman said estimating is a fine art ​in the budget process, but she expects the county will​ provide solid figures in January, “well before a draft budget is presented to our commissioners.” Huffman also said that the county has set up additional resources this year for owners, including more extensive use of the county’s web site.

They also hired more staff; and created a permanent revaluation division. County officials are hopeful that 2019 will not be a repeat of 2011, when the new values ignited a firestorm of protest. The “flawed revaluation” resulted in the county paying back millions in refunds .

Commercial broker Gordon Allebach says there are three potential results: “If the new assessment is way out of whack, it can be appealed. In 2011 I appealed a few of the values we received. On the other hand, If the owner feels the new assessment is pretty close, he or she has two choices: he/she can accept it and eat the difference and attempt to make up the difference when he negotiates the next lease.”

ALLEBACH

More common, though, is the triple net lease where the tenant is paying the net amount of three major expenses in addition to the base rent: insurance, taxes and maintenance. In those cases, any tax increase will be bumped over to the tenant.

Tax bills are not guaranteed to rise. As they prepare their fiscal year 2020 budgets (FY 2020 runs from 7/1/19 to 6/30/20) county and town commissioners can adjust tax rates downward to stay revenue neutral.

By state law, each municipality is required to calculate and publish a revenue-neutral tax rate as they prepare their spending plans. Assuming property values go up, the lower revenue neutral tax rate could be theoretically used to generate the revenue needed to continue providing services.

However, a sharp rise in values usually translates to a tax increase of some magnitude, according to veteran real estate officials.

“From what I’ve seen over the years, if the property values go up, so do the taxes,” Allebach said.